Politics

-- Foreign Minister of Zambia Harry Kalaba promised to rally international assistance for Vietnam to deal with the aftermath of bombs and mines left over from the US war 40 years ago while meeting with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi on Thursday.

-- Vietnamese Deputy Prime Ministers Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vu Duc Dam sent their congratulations on Wednesday to Bounpone Bouttanavong and Phankham Viphavanh on their appointment as Lao Deputy Prime Ministers.   

-- Vietnam conducted a flag-raising ceremony for two new missile warships on Thursday.   

Society

-- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is scheduled to visit Vietnam for the third time since 2000 on Friday.

-- A woman died on Thursday following a surgery to cut her inflammatory tonsils a day earlier at a hospital in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum.

-- Vietnamese railway authorities have just banned train staff from drinking alcohol and beer onboard in a bid to tighten discipline.   

-- Vietnam will spend VND43.5 billion (US$2 million) building a 30-bed hospital in Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago in the 2014-2015 period, according to the vice chairman of the central province of Khanh Hoa which administers Truong Sa.

-- Super typhoon Rammasun is forecast to batter the sea area in the Gulf of Tonkin and northern Vietnamese provinces on Friday and Saturday.

-- A Ho Chi Minh City court sentenced a 35-year-old man to death on Thursday for killing and burning the body of his 49-year-old partner early last year.

-- Vietnamese police said Thursday that they had busted an illegal online football betting ring whose transactions could amount to thousands of billions of dong. (VND1 billion = $47,000).

Business

-- Vietnam’s state-owned power supplier EVN signed an agreement to take out a $338 million government-guaranteed loan from two Japanese banks to build a thermal power plant in the central region. The maturity period of the lending is 17 years.  

-- Vietnam Airlines delayed 22 domestic and international flights for 35 to 95 minutes on Thursday because of super typhoon Rammasun, the national flag carrier said the same day.

Lifestyle

-- Martin Yan Taste of Vietnam, a TV series dedicated to Vietnamese cuisine, will start airing on American networks KQED, PBS and APT on September 6.  

Sports

-- Vietnam’s number one badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh has made it to the quarter final round in the men’s singles category of a championship in Taiwan after beating his Taiwanese opponent Lin Yu Hsien 2-1 (19-21, 21-4, 21-12) on Thursday.